It's not about the kids. It's not about the job. It's not about religion or politics.
Unless, of course, I want it to be.

9.21.2005

Snippets - trust a pro, preschool crush and baby talk

Two weeks ago my mom called me after one of her church meetings. "They need someone to do PR," she said. "You ought to call." And since this is this sort of work is what I do and because I enjoy it (and because I always enjoy resume fodder), I called.

I met with Pastor T who is over-seeing our building program. We talked about how to get coverage for the church and the nursery school with the opening of the newly renovated section of the school wing. How we could incorporate information about the addition that ought to be completed next month and the pending 'alumni' reunion in planning stages.

"We don't expect coverage, actually," she had said to me. "We've tried this in the past. Actually we've tried it quite often. We never get anything."

I placed two phone calls, followed by two emails. One to the main two-county daily and the other to the rinky-dink single county rag. I spoke to the editor of the big paper who urged me to send a note with the release to a different editor in the local bureau.

The big paper is coming out on Thursday morning with a reporter and a photographer. The school has asked if its ok if they bring the photographer to Logan's class. I said "Oh, sure, I guess."

--On our way home last night Logan and I were talking about his day at school. Mrs R had helped him up on the potty again.

"You like her, huh?" I said to him and again reminded him of her name since he insists on calling her "the helper."

"Yes, I do," he said and then giggled. "She's really pretty."

"What about Mrs S. She's nice. You like your teacher?" I asked him.

"Oh yes, she's very pretty too."

Men! They get an early start!--

I guess we can almost call it a sentence -- a 12-month old's sentence.

Of course since that moment, Megan has handed Tasha the food in question and has placed herself in the small motorized lime green VW Beatle Logan got one Christmas from his aunts. She figured out the gas pedal this morning but can't reach it with enough force to make the car move. Instead she throws her weight back and forth to make it inch forward. She chants "Vava! VavaooommM!" as she does it. Vroom, vroom!

She then calls me to take her out of the car by singing "Maaaaama! Maaaaaaaaa MAAAA!" I lift her up. She hugs me. She sticks her face close to mine and says softly "nose, nose" which is her way to say "Rub noses." Then she points through the large windows at the back of the room that face our yard. Her finger settles in the direction of her new swing.

"Ow Baa" she commands.

I shake my head no. "Megan Rose, it's too cold and too early to go out back. Logan is still sleeping. And you, miss, still have your footy pajamas on."

She giggles. "Brabah ni-ni." (Brother night-night or Brother is sleeping.) She wiggles around to let me know she wants me to put her down. She toddles around the playroom looking for something to amuse herself with. She settles on pulling colored paper from the art box and then working hard to get Logan's toy tools from their plastic case.

I'm thinking being the little sister to a chatterbox preschooler isn't impeding her language development after all. In fact, it seems to help. Logan had a large vocabulary for his age at a year old, but he was still sticking mostly to single word communiques. Megan easily uses as many words but has been combining them into phrases for some time now. Granted the average stranger would not understand much of what she's trying to say, but those of us that spend time with her pick it up easily.